The Tibetan exile community may have differences in views on the best
approach to win freedom for Tibetans in China, but these can be
accommodated within the community’s growing experience of democracy, a
key aide to the Dalai Lama says.

Divisions have long persisted in
the Tibetan exile community over questions of how best to advance the
rights and freedoms of Tibetans living in China, with some calling for a
return of the independence lost when Chinese troops marched into the
self-governing region in 1949.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual
leader, and Tibet’s India-based exile government, the Central Tibetan
Administration (CTA), have instead adopted a Middle Way Approach,
accepting Tibet’s present status as a part of China while urging greater
cultural and religious freedoms for the Tibetan people.

“There’s
room for both [groups] to voice their views and express themselves,”
said the Dalai Lama’s Representative to the Americas Kaydor Aukatsang,
speaking on Tuesday—the 54th anniversary of Tibetan Democracy Day—at the
International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), a Washington-based advocacy
group.

“Conventional wisdom would say that for a freedom
struggle, it would make much more sense to have a unified position, a
single view and a single voice,” Aukatsang said. “But in our society
today, in Tibetan society, there’s a polarity of voices and positions.”

Following centuries of rule in Tibet by a line of Dalai Lamas, the
present fourteenth Dalai Lama began in exile to slowly introduce
democratic reforms, beginning in 1960 with the seating of
representatives to an India-based Tibetan exile parliament.

This
was followed by the drafting of a governing charter, by the introduction
of universal suffrage, and finally by the election in 2011 of an exile
Tibetan political leader, or Sikyong.

And though the Dalai Lama
has now transferred his political role and authority to the current
Sikyong, his policy preferences and views still naturally dominate
political debate in the Tibetan exile community.

'Many voices'

This
may someday change, said National Endowment for Democracy senior
director for Asia and Global Programs Brian Joseph, also speaking at the
Washington forum.

“Looking forward, you are unlikely to have one voice dominate as it does today,” Joseph said.

“Including
different voices, allowing for dissent, and recognizing that there are
going to be opposition voices who disagree with you vociferously but
still support the cause, is the essential change that will have to take
place for the Tibetan community.”

In other modern freedom
struggles, “there were many, many voices,” Joseph said, adding, “These
were geared toward the same objectives, but with different policies,
different tactics, sometimes slightly different desired outcomes—but in
essence a commitment to the same goals.”

“You can have people
pushing for autonomy, or people pushing for independence, in a manner
that reinforces each other even if they’re not coordinated,” Joseph
said.

Candidates for election as Tibetan leaders have so far run
as individuals supporting the Middle Way Approach. “[But] there’s nobody
that’s stopping anybody from establishing any kind of an entity or a
body that would represent their views,” Aukatsang said, speaking at ICT.

“Whether as an individual or as a group of like-minded people, you can start something. So there’s an opportunity.”

“If
you want to run as a party, and you want to have candidates that are
part of that party, you can put that out there to the electorate and say
I’m so and so, and I represent this party, and my party stands for x,
y, and z.”

“You can test that and see how much of a buy-in you get from people,” he said.